Harsh report by Tory who died at festival was Cameron’s idea

Christopher Shale died after his memo about party membership was leakedINS

David Cameron commissioned and welcomed the controversial critique of Conservative Party membership by his friend Christopher Shale, who died suddenly at the Glastonbury Festival.

Mr Shale’s spiky observations about Tory activists were drawn up with the full approval and co-operation of the Downing Street and Tory party hierarchies, it emerged yesterday.

He had been encouraged to be “brutally honest” and to “get under the skin of the party”, according to well-placed sources, and had talked through his findings with Lord Feldman, the Tory co-chairman, Stephen Gilbert, Mr Cameron’s political secretary, and Andrew Cooper, the Downing Street strategy director.

Mr Shale’s ideas for reaching out to new party members would have been championed by Mr Cameron and adopted across the country had they succeeded in pilot…